Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent (27 page)

"Nearly twelve years. Just bring over the bottle, will you? I could
do with a proper drink. And there's glasses on that shelf, too," she
called to his departing back.

Jury poured the drinks into little balloon glasses and set the
bottle down. "I'm sorry about what you must be going through."

The seriousness of his tone threatened to provoke more tears. But
she wedged her hand over her mouth and held them back. Under control
again, she said, "Whyever the poor girl bought this place is a puzzle.
Had it for a dozen years. She must have got it on the cheap. The
Denholmes are London people; why'd she want to live out here in the
wilds? There's many a time I've thought of going back to Harrogate—ever
so lovely it is—but I'd've felt I was letting her down. I don't think
Miss Ann had all that much business sense."

Jury thought for a moment, and said, "What about her niece?"

Mrs. Braithwaite looked up, slightly surprised that the conversation
had taken this turn and said, "Abigail? We call her Abby." She looked
up at a few snapshots stuck round an old mirror in need of resilvering
and said, "That's her, with her Aunt Ann."

Jury got up and looked at the snapshot. Small as it was even with
the light silhouetting her outline, he could still see the strong
resemblance between the little girl and the aunt.

"Why did Abby come here? What about her own mother and father?"

Warming to the fire, the brandy, and the turn of the conversation
(something to keep her mind off the death of Ann Denholme), Mrs.
Braithwaite leaned forward and said, "That'd be Ann's sister, Iris. And
right strange that were. Poor girl, she'd had two miscarriages already
and her doctor wanted to see she got proper nursing." Her manner grew
even more conspiratorial as she went on: " 'Twasn't the husband who
could do it; he had his job, after all. That Iris was a pale, thin
little woman; sometimes I thought I could put my hand through her. Ann
went off for six or seven months to take care of her. And three years
later, after poor Iris died, Ann took on Abby. Trevor came here—Trevor
Cable, Abby's Da. I'll have another little sup of that brandy, thanks.
He didn't want her, or felt he couldn't do for her, apparently. He
seemed to think Abby needed a woman about."

"And was Ann Denholme fond of her niece?" Jury asked as he poured a
little more into her glass.

"Fond? Well—I expect so." She seemed alarmed at the notion that such
a question would arise. "Ann was a broody type. All those long walks on
the moors . . . ," she ended uncertainly. Then Mrs. Braithwaite
sniffed. "It's not because she's been turned out, if that's wha' yer
thinkin'."

"Why would I think that?"

The question went unanswered.

From the cooker came the abrasive sound of a clattering lid. As Mrs.
Braithwaite grumbled and struggled from her chair, Jury said, "Never
mind, I'll see to it."

"Oh, would you now? It's that soup. If you'd just give it a stir and
turn down the gas."

"What do you expect will happen to her now?" Jury asked, his back to
her as he stirred the thick stew. "Back to the father? Or will Social
Services step in?"

As he returned to his chair, he saw her face hot with anger. "Not
back to
that
man, not if I've a breath left. Oh, no."
Vehemently, she shook her head. "He doesn't want her, anyways, is what
Ann said."

Jury waited awhile, made some small talk about the countryside then
said, "You've certainly had your share of bad news in these parts.
There was that killing at the Old Silent Inn—"

"Yes. Terrible, that is, about Mrs. Healey. Mr. Citrine was over
here just this noon to pay his respects. Brought over a brace of
pheasant."

Jury looked at her, but her head was down. "Charles Citrine was a
particular friend?"

"I wouldn't say 'particular.' Ann knew the family; and Mrs. Healey
would come over here with . . ." Her hand wedged over her mouth again
as she squinted down at the coals, spitting, turning to gray ash. "That
poor little boy, Billy."

"Billy?"

With her forearm she wiped away tears, ignoring the ball of tissues
in her pocket. "I niver did understand it, sir. Such a
nice
man was Mr. Healey. He fairly doted on that son of his. It must've
nearly killed him—" She stopped suddenly as if she'd realized a truth
inherent in this, though not what the truth was.

"I would imagine the same could be said for the mother—" Jury
checked himself.

"Oh, yes, yes," she said quickly. "But she wasn't the
real
mother, was she? I mean, I know she was that fond of the boy. But she
couldn't have a
real
mother's feelings."

Jury felt himself grow cold. He leaned over to freshen her drink;
brandy didn't seem to affect her that much. "I've taken up too much of
your time." Jury rose.

But from the way she held on to the hand he offered, apparently she
didn't agree. "Would you just give that stew another bit of a stir?"

A black and white collie sat just outside the double door to the
barn, using its nose to track the weather. It looked curiously at
Jury, but did nothing, except to turn and follow him in, keeping close
to Jury's heel.

The sun was nearly down; light cast squares upon the ground that
stretched across the center of the barn. The large doors at the other
side were tightly closed, cracks stuffed with cloth. To his left, in
the rear and in the shadows, was the byre from which came rustles and
the lowing sound of a cow. Part of a stone wall held a fireplace, and
in front of it were a table and mismatched chairs. There was an old
sink beneath another small window.

At the end of the barn opposite the byre was a cot, layered in
quilts. Beside this bed an upturned crate served as a case for books
and a few records and beside it was a record player, older even than
his own. On a low stool at the foot of the bed was the outline of a box
beneath a black drapery. It appeared to be a little larger than a shoe
box. A small table lamp stood on the crate, the light fanning out
through the open circle of the shade over the bottom part of a big
framed print of a house amidst dark trees. It was no more out of place
in a barn, he thought, than the faded travel pictures of Venezio (which
reminded him, for God's sakes, to call Vivian) and a view of the
Cornwall coast, the frilled waves lashing the cliffside. Between them
was an empty space with blobs of gum, as if another picture had hung
there. Venice and Cornwall were faded, but the one of Elvis in his
younger days appeared in mint condition.

The little girl came out of the shadows of the byre, rolling up a
poster that she held against her stomach. She was making a long and
solemn job of it. Although she did not acknowledge the presence of a
stranger in her barn, her down-turned eyes so firmly engaged with her
task, he felt she knew he was there.

"Hello," Jury said.

She didn't answer; instead she concentrated on her rolling-job,
stopping now and then to shove in the ends. Then she said, "I'm taking
down Ricky Nelson."

"The singer, you mean."

The dark head nodded, still downturned. "He's dead." There was in
her tone a finality that would have silenced any sentimental remark
about finding comfort in mementos. She looked over to the hearth where
lay the new poster pinned down by a hammer-weight on top and the
sleeping dog on the bottom. The corners at the top curled inward. "I'm
putting them up in his place."

"They" were the members of the Sirocco band and, however they
measured up to Ricky Nelson, they were, at least, alive. That seemed
to be her estimate of the affair. It was the poster he'd seen further
enlarged in the window of the record shop in Piccadilly. It was a
rather austere and studied pose, Charlie Raine leaning against a
leafless tree, which was the focal point, and the four others, looking
off in other directions in an otherwise blasted landscape.

Ricky Nelson had died some years ago, but perhaps in what looked to
Jury like Abby's very patchwork past, events stitched together from
piecework left behind by others—she had only recently come to realize
that something else was gone from it. The mismatched clothes she wore
fit the image, too: the somewhat muddy white shawl that reached down
her back to her ankles, the zigzag-striped jumper and brown wool skirt,
its hem covering the tops of old boots.

Thus when she raised her face to give him a grim look, Jury was
startled by its beauty. Her eyes were a deep blue that sea beyond
Cornwall could never match. She said: "I don't think it's right to have
a poster up of somebody dead." Here he saw her glance quickly toward
Elvis pinned to the far wall near whom the Sirocco poster had been
fixed. "I don't care if Ethel's mad. It's my barn." From a pocket
hidden beneath the shawl, she took out a wad of stuff that looked like
tangled string, found a rubber band, and rolled it carefully over the
poster. Then she returned the blue eyes to him, apparently waiting.

"Do you want me to help you tack that up?"

She was not, clearly, to be fooled by some offer of help. "I expect
you're another policeman."

Under that blue stare, he felt more like a suspect. He smiled a
little. "Was there one here before, then?"

"Two. They kept asking questions. One was nearly as tall as you. He
asked me did I like rock music." She looked at Jury, waiting.

He might be taller, but was he smarter? "That's sort of obvious,
isn't it?" She didn't verify this. "I don't ask a lot of questions."

"They
all
ask questions." She was still clenching the
rolled-up poster and Jury could see a slick of sweat from her palms
where they'd moved up and down. "But they never tell you nothing.
Except Aunt Ann had some kind of accident."

The words came out slow and fine, as if they'd been ground like grit
from millstone. She had found the lie in them.

Silence filled the barn, broken only by the shuffling of the cow in
its stall.

"I've got to give it its medicine," she said quickly, the sick cow a
welcome distraction from the topic at hand. "You can watch."

"Sometimes I have to take care of Mr. Nelligan's sheep." She gave
Jury a quick look to see, apparently, if he believed in this vetting of
animals by a person so young.

"Who's he?"

Abby stoppered up the bottle and got down from the stool. "He lives
out on the moor in an old caravan. He doesn't take care of them at
all." She picked the poster from the dirt floor. Jury looked at the two
doors of the empty stalls. On one was a poster of Mick Jagger, on the
other, Dire Straits.

"I'm putting this away," she said, walking over to an old steamer
trunk. She bent down and unclasped the tarnished brass buckles, lifted
the lid, and carefully placed the poster in it. Then she stood quickly,
a furious look on her face, and let the coffin lid thunk down. "We're
having our tea," she said, turning to the fireplace, where the collie
now lay, beside the larger dog, paws outstretched, eyes drawing a bead
on Jury's every move.

Jury smiled slightly, assuming that "we" meant Abby and the dogs.

"You can have some too," she said, without a clue as to whether she
looked forward to this addition.

"Thank you." In the grave preparation of the tea things, Jury said
nothing; he doubted he could penetrate her thoughts, as tangled as the
load of strings in her pocket.

"I've only got tea bags," she said, lifting the top of a box of
P&G's and setting several of them on the table.

Jury smiled. "If they're good enough for Prince Edward they're good
enough for me."

Gazing at him over a little dish of buns, she looked puzzled.

"There was a picture in the paper over a year ago of Edward going to
his first job—he wants to be an actor. He was holding a box just like
that." Jury nodded toward the P&G box.

Still frowning, she dropped three tea bags in the pot. "Well, if I
was his mother I'd see he got a proper tea." In a pique of anger, she
plunked a bun apiece on two small plates. "He's all she's got left."

This sad estimation of the sinking family numbers at the palace
forestalled any comment on Prince Charles and his brother and sister.
Those three were married and gone. "It must be hard on the Queen
watching her children grow up and move away."

She fiddled with her shawl, said nothing.

Jury looked round the walls of the barn. "You have some very nice
posters and pictures."

After she'd wetted the tea, she said, "Ethel gave me the cat one."
Abby pointed to a picture, one corner curling in for lack of a drawing
pin. Her tone was uncertain, and she glanced at the trunk, as if the
gift from Ethel was a task as yet unfinished in her mind, still causing
her a muddle. The picture was one Jury had seen several times before—a
popular and sentimental interpretation of childhood; a little girl in
a thick, rich frock, holding a bowl of milk in her lap. Her dimpled
smile was directed at an assortment of starveling cats meant to look
sleek and rather rich, all waiting for their dinner.

It must have reminded Abby of her dog, for she picked up the enamel
pitcher and poured milk into a tin plate by the fire. The collie went
busily to work on it. "She gave it to me probably because she thinks
that girl looks like her. Ethel has reddish hair in curls like that.
And white skin." Abby pulled her cheeks out with her fingers,
distorting the heart-shape to something cartoonishly plump. "It's
round, her face is," she said through tightly drawn, rubber-band lips.
"Ethel's my best friend. What do you think?" she asked, waiting for the
verdict to be handed down. That Jury and Ethel had never met presented
no problem to Abby. He should be able to decide from a combination of
her description and the picture.

He rose from his seat and walked over to the picture. The child
there was snub-nosed, dimpled and too prissily dear to be believed.